Keith Laumer (1925-1993) holds an unusual place in the history of Science Fiction. During his life he never received the laurels that he deserved, never winning either the Hugo or Nebula. Despite this his work was popular with readers. A diplomat, he was uniquely positioned to write the Retief series with a verisimilitude that most of us could never hope to find. His military SF is also well-informed, having served in the Air Force. In the 21st century his Bolo series has found new fans as the tales of the robotic tanks have been reprinted by Baen Books and expanded upon by authors like William Keith and Eric Flint. What I wanted to do here does not include these pastiches, but looks at the original Bolo tales and in the order they were written, with the hope of gleaming some idea of the evolution the idea has taken. All Laumer’s original work appeared in The Compleat Bolo (1990). This is a nice collection because it is Laumer’s alone. Taken, along with the novel A Plague of Demons (1964) it forms the core of the Bolo canon.
“Combat Unit” (F&SF, November 1960) was the first Bolo tale, and in it we can see Laumer has begun at the end, creating much of what is to come later, meaning the Dinochrome Brigade, self-aware super-tanks, their history, methods and abilities. The story begins when a damaged tank awakens, works it way back to full consciousness. Laumer gives this process as a series of choppy improvements that allows the reader to experience the awakening as the Mark XXXIII series tank does. This arty technique, as much as the intelligence of the tank that sits waiting for rescue, while it listens to classical music, studies stars and contemplates the meaning of life and death, explains why this story appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction. It’s not an action story so much as the tale of a survivor and the success of his positive mind-set.
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 3:From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly